“You see,” said Bart, “it would be the most magnificent thing ever undertaken on this hill. Besides, how splendid it would be to bring our ghost face to face with Pat’s own private ghost, and let them confront each other. What a tremendous, stupendous, overwhelming, and altogether unparalleled uproar there would be! Pat would then be confronted with something different from anything that he had been calculating on. We’d break down the panic of the boys, and it would all end in a roar of laughter.”
“But what a row there’ll be!” exclaimed Phil.
“I wonder which party’ll begin,” said Arthur.
“Pat’s side, of course,” said Bruce.
“I hope,” said Tom, “that our side’ll do his duty.”
“O, we’ll have to keep him up to it. Donkey’s that can bray, and won’t bray, must be made to bray.”
“He’s such an obstinate brute,” said Arthur, “that I don’t believe we’ll be able to do anything.”
“O, we’ll manage that,” said Bruce. “The five of us are strong enough to pull him along if he won’t go himself.”
“We can get a whip, or a stout stick somewhere,” said Phil.
“No,” said Bart; “no beating if we can help it. I’m averse, on principle, to all corporal punishment. I formed a deep prejudice against it in my early school days. No, boys: remember what Pope says:
’If I had a donkey,
And he wouldn’t go,
D’ye think I’d wallop him?
No, no, no.’